The upcoming 2010 presidential election, about seven months from now, has spawned a lively discussion on how Filipinos could intelligently choose their next president. Almost everyone who is knowledgeable in Philippine politics is aware that elections in the country are nothing more than a popularity contest. Hence, name recognition, whether in the context of fame or notoriety, draws a high premium in terms of “electability”.
To get votes, politicians are not above making fools of themselves. Singing out-of-tune in public, kissing babies they don’t know, praying “solemnly” in front of cameras, eating on bare hands barrio-style with the “masa”, or cavorting on-stage with paid show-business personalities are just some of the common gimmicks to entice ordinary voters. Often, a mean-spirited verbal assault against an opponent, or an unpopular object of hate, is among the ubiquitous weapons in a candidate’s arsenal.
Recently, one FV regular blogger, BenignO, wrote a thoughtful piece, “Platform Plez”, calling for each candidate to present, and each prospective voter to demand, a set of definitive program of actions, as well as visions and principles, that the particular candidate intends to follow should he win. I endorse such an idea as one the best means to hold a politician morally, if not legally, accountable for his campaign avowals. On the other hand, it gives the average voter a tangible basis for supporting, or rejecting, said politician over and beyond consideration of the latter’s popularity, or lack of it.
Without denigrating the value of platforms, I would add a verifiable track record of past accomplishment and/or achievement, whether in or out of government service, as a reliable gauge of how a candidate would likely perform if elected. Human nature being what it is, it would not be too hard for a politician to hire the best and most creative platform-writer in the business to craft an attractive set of planned actions, principles and visions, without the same politician having the slightest intention of abiding by it. Exclusive reliance on a candidate’s good faith and sense of honor is like plunging head-on in murky waters filled with concealed dangers.
In contrast, genuine achievements/accomplishment of a person during his lifetime provides a most reliable indicia of future performance by that person in any given task. Unless falsified (which can easily be discovered and exposed), a record of past performance and accomplishments cannot be fabricated, made up, or conjured up from nothing. By the same token, a record of failure, misadventure, foolhardiness, or mediocrity cannot be sugar-coated to be palatable, and can, in no way, inspire hope.
The presidency of a country is an all too important office that a democratic system can offer. It should never be treated as a training ground for the highest national leadership. It is not for the inexperienced, untested, unprepared, slogan-driven aspirant groping for “discernment” in the great void.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Character, capability, intent.
Benign0 rightfully argues for intent, you argue for capability, and I say character must be good or the other two are smoke.
Joe
for once i agree with you, joe-am. character completes the trifecta for choosing the best. my only problem is that character reputation, like perception of morality, is ephemeral in politics, especially the philippine brand. one man’s angel is another man’s demon. once we, humans, acquire the ability to look into another man’s heart and mind, then we can accurately assess his true character.
Joe to understand Philippine politics one has to go back in U.S. history to the Irish dominated Tammany Hall style of patronage politics and the Mafia.. . The Kennedy family in the U.S. are products of that earlier system of politics.
Today with the emergence of mass media and communications at light speed brand name marketing has taken over. Look at the problems of Obama regarding health care. The crazies have taken over the media with nonsensical spins on government options in health care.
Media loves a cockfight to get higher ratings. The drive to inform is lost in the drive to get the scoop. Gotcha journalism prevails.
Here in the Philippines the newcomers to the competition for the top office market their brand name just like laundry soap.. Or they have to have the communication skills to grab headlines on a regular basis. Just look at Miriam who has made a career on one liners that the media love.
How can one discuss issues like what foreign exchange policy would be best for a developing economy like the Philippines? Why does the BSP continue to offer high interest rates in their SDA to combat inflation (controlling money supply) in a world that is in danger of deflationary pressures? In a time of governments throwing money to prevent depressions we are doing the opposite?
The people are looking for champions who have the silver bullet. That is what elections are all about. It is not about reasoning…
Just look at Palin, Joe the Plumber and Bencard…
Erap aint so bad in that light..
J_ag,
Yes the media drive things in both the US and here. In the US,the internet is also a force, greater than here, I suppose.
And Erap has been creeping up on my list, in part because some others have fallen so far so fast, Gordon the latest.
I always appreciate your keen perspectives.
Joe
J_ag,
‘The crazies have taken over the media with nonsensical spins on government options in health care.’
Can you specify the nonsensical spins by the crazies?
it is public knowledge in the u.s. that the traditional networks, including abc, nbc, cnn, msnbc, pbn, and traditional broadsheets like ny times, boston herald,la times, washington post, etc. are in the tank with the leftist liberals.
to say that the obama health care plan is in trouble would be an understatement. and that’s just one of his many problems.
There is a problem with your health care plan if your plan requires taxing health care plan benefits to provide health care plans to people without health care plans.
This is one that is precious…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/19/barney-frank-confronts-wo_n_262682.html
J_ag,
I assume that you don’t have a US health care plan provided by your employer. It is easy to give up something that you don’t have.
one thing that really amazes me is how these leftist – liberal loonies think they are “smarter” than everybody else. just because most of them are radicals, comedians, impersonators, ideologues (of failed and repudiated ideologies), entertainers, hip-hop “artists”, etc., they have it in their gut that they have all the answers to the world’s problems.
fortunately, the american people can be fooled once but seldom twice.
One of unknown achievements of the liberal leftist loonies was immigration reform in the sixties.
That liberal leftist icon the descendant of Irish Catholic scum opened the door to immigrants from Asia, Latin America and Africa.
It allowed red neck Pinoy white man to immigrate to the U.S.
Yup the so called leftist loonies in the U.S. are really smarter than most average Joe’s in the U.S. That is a fact…
I am simply amazed that people actually believe that there are leftists in mainstream American politics.
The Democrats use to be the party of the segregated South. The Republicans the party of the elite bankers. Then FDR transformed the Democratic party to the party for the workers and small farmers. . The present day mainstream Democrats and Republicans have very little differences.
Teddy Kennedy was the last of the New Deal Democrats. Senator Byrd (the former Klu Klux Klan leader} the most senior Democratic senator is still alive.
How the world has turned. Now the Republican Southern strategy started by Nixon has resurrected the the racist bogey…
NBC is owned by G.E. CBS is owned by Westinghouse. These are two of the most leftist communistic groups in the U.S.A.
Bencard’s cogent idiotic posts are simply astounding.
Paul Krugman the most recent Nobel recipient in economics is a prime example of your know it all liberal leftie. He is a rabid Keynesian leftie ideologue. David Brooks a well known Goldwater conservative. As an American citizen do you know your American politics?
From the “communist organ” in the U.S. The New York Times…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/opinion/28brooks.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31krugman.html?_r=1&hp
J_ag,
‘The Republicans the party of the elite bankers.’
It is also the party that ended slavery and kept the Union intact. Pretty smart.
and you think you are “smart”, dude, just because your “authority” is the huffington post or the ny times? who cares if brooks was once a “goldwater republican” some 50 years ago. turncoatism also happens in america but only in very rare instances. who is david brooks in americn politics, anyway?
the leftist-liberal loonies did not open america to world-wide immigration. it was warren harding, a republican, who did, albeit for a relatively limited number and under a quota system that was deemed right at the time. (btw, john kennedy may have been a democrat but he was not a “leftist-liberal looney”, i don’t think.) btw, it was ronald reagan who gave the first “amnesty” to illegal aliens in 1986, an act that may have benefited many of your relatives or friends or maybe even YOU.
btw, don’t underestimate the wisdom of the “average joes” in america. they make mistakes, yes, but they know when they’ve been had, and they can make amends without resorting to “ocho-ocho fiesta” politics like “edsa”.
December 9, 1953 in History
General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired
Most leftist communistic groups fired communist employees in 1953 to become most leftist communistic
group in 2009 USA.. never ind that GE manufactures the engine of the F-35 – and that its stocks is publicly traded in the NYSE. how profound
But they elected dubya twice
sure they voted for Dubya twice.
note however, that in the first election, dubya lost in terms of popular votes – but won overall due to the electoral college votes.
in the second election, the US was in the middle of a war, and the Americans were not about to change horses in midstream.
lastly, have you you heard dubya advocating charter change to extend his term? :)
you’re right, buencamino. but when they re-elected “dubya”, the economy was strong and everybody, including some “blue dog” democrats, and with the exception of ultra leftist haters of america, like how he was prosecuting the war on terror after the 9/11/01 tragic world trade attack. you see, americans elect a candidate for a reason, not because he is popular or notorious, or with a lot of money. in the u.s., the likes of erap (after conviction for plunder) can NEVER be a candidate for president, let alone elected to the office.
The next generation must start somewhere. If they dont want the
existing political process of electing leaders. These politicians
hold the political agendas. Not the people. THEY SIDESTEP ISSUES.
They cannot present comprehensive solutions and programs to our
country’s problem. THEY DONT EVEN KNOW THE PROBLEMS.
They divert the issues by: bringing showbiz personalities; kissing
babies; patting voters on the back; and giving rice, tuyos, etc…to
poor voters. ONCE THEY ARE ELECTED TO OFFICES; THEY DONT KNOW WHAT
THEY ARE DOING. SO THEY STEAL AND DO OTHER STUPID THINGS.
Thanks for this Bencard. I’ve modified my position on this whole business of platforms recently (taking onboard some of the criticism I’ve received about Platform Plez™), as it is quite obvious that by no stretch of the imagination will the average Filipino vote on the basis of a candidate’s platform (a platform as we define it, that is) in the near-term.
I think BenK put it rather well in one of the comments he made in an exchange of commentary around his article on Noynoy’s presidential aspirations and his no-platform approach to pursuing it:
The reality is that platforms do not maketh the successful politician in backward self-described “democratic” societies like the Philippines.
HOWEVER, there is still a lot to be said about the quality of “debate” amongst those in our small circles — our society’s political bloggers, columnists, reporters, pundits, various “experts” on the matter, and the thousands of people who comment and participate in discussions in blogs and message forums that have the means to access, the the education to apply, and the faculties to comprehend the a politician’s platform. While the masses can be excused to some extent for their limited capacity for evaluating things intelligently, the quality of the “debate” within our circles leaves much to be desired.
A realistic short-term goal, therefore, is a raising of the bar of the standards of quality and intelligence of the chatter exchanged within the so-called intelligentsia. The responsibility on those who know better to step up and LEAD the upgrading of the overall capacity for critical thinking of Pinoy society is immense. And a part of that is mounting a large-scale shift AWAY from the kind and quality of “analysis” that captures popular appeal but remains utterly vacuous (as can be noted in places like Jolog Central) and channel it towards one that is grounded on the kind of substance that can be found in categorically-stated POSITIONS on RELEVANT ISSUES made by politicians (such as what is in the CONTENT of their campaign platforms).
Just as one’s memory is indispensible to one’s development as a human being, our society needs to have a form of COLLECTIVE MEMORY as well. Without it we will continue — as we have in the last 50 years — to elect the same bozos and to remain beholden to the same vacuous ideas, simply because without a capacity for retaining past learnings, we will always lack a means to capitalise on and hindsight.
benigno, we have to learn how to walk before we can run. but we have to take the first step. a critical appraisal of a candidate’s platform, coupled with a thorough scrutiny of his problem-solving skills, past achievements and a “winner” attitude, will enable us to separate the chaff from the grain, and wisely make the ultimate choice.
Benign0
My congratulations to you. I have suspected that you actually reflect on what you read, and I find it is a rarity in the Philippines for someone to give up or adjust on a position, because to do so seems to cause some kind of personal embarrassment. You are hereby declared an advanced member of society.
Joe
“Human nature being what it is, it would not be too hard for a politician to hire the best and most creative platform-writer in the business to craft an attractive set of planned actions, principles and visions, without the same politician having the slightest intention of abiding by it.”-Bencard
“I’ve modified my position on this whole business of platforms recently (taking onboard some of the criticism I’ve received about Platform Plez™),…”-benignO
Hmmmn, nothing wrong with bright guys coming around to see the light, hehehe.
Hallelujah!
Bert,
The bozo from the Land Down Under and the Home of the Convicts finally realized that he is not a bright guy.
Well, I agree with the assestment with the politics in the Philippines and even in the U.S . Philippines also called the Sick Man of Asia . I wonder what our current political systems in the Philippines be content being called such title . I think that we can do better and not just being an activists or other political opportunist … Philippines inherited the American politics of popularity contest , like President Obama . I think that we can do better in 2010 or just keep on trying. I am currently doing a film on what is like living and being poor in the Philippines and reflecting on how Spanish and we threat them. Many elite threat our poor the same away the spanish threat the native and American threated Minorities . I hope that my film change many Filipinos heart on how we threat each other …. have a good nite.
welcome to FV, randy. hope you enjoy your visit. yes, the coming 2010 presidential campaign and election will give filipinos the opportunity to re-examine their old habits of electing presidents. discussions such as this could be an effective tool in educating the average voter on how to wisely use their voting power for the common good.
I ttoatlly agree Bencard, Platform and past achievements and wrong doing shoudl go hand in hand in assessing the candidates.
This is why I go with Villar. I think he has done something that shaped up the country. One of those is the erap impeachment. I dont think roxas or any candidates has done something on that “magnitude”.
yes, rego. as i pointed out recently, manny villar has accomplished a lot of good things in and out of government service. he has shown effective leadership and pragmatic approach to making things happen.
i think the alleged “c-5″ controversy is not a factor against his candidacy. what can you expect from anything coming from jamby madrigal (and her notorious “misstatements” cum fabrications under cover of parliamentary privilege)? in any event, the important question is, did the c-5 project damaged the country, or was it benefited by it?
Scratch ‘character’ off the list. Past accomplishments are a reliable guide to all you need to know about a candidate’s ‘character’. Just as a candidate can hire a good platform writer, a candidate can act like a good character – and candidates in this country are probably better at that than most. Without the record to provide evidence, however, the front collapses.
Bencard makes a point here, but it’s one that should be qualified. First, it is important to separate real accomplishments from those things that were just good ideas a candidate had in the past. Case in point, the Pre-Need Code that Mar Roxas co-authored. As far as I know, and I know I need not ask to be corrected if I’m wrong, that bill is currently languishing in the House. It is not an accomplishment yet, in the strictest sense. It is probably enough to support a judgment of Roxas’ character by a voter, depending on how the voter wants to look at it, so it is not without significance.
Second, past accomplishments only indicate “probabilities” of a candidate’s future actions. A platform, however, is a clear statement of intent – one which the candidate can be held accountable for. If you decide, as a voter, that what candidate X did in the Senate is a reliable indicator of what he will do in the future, and then he doesn’t meet your expectations, can you accuse him of breaking his promise? No, he made no promise to begin with.
Character is best indicated by past actions. Past actions are an uncertain indicator of future actions. A platform is a certain indicator of future intentions, and a candidate who has a record but no future plans could be viewed as either A) not having the ability to make plans, which is something anyone in an administrative position needs to understand and be able to do, or B) has put getting elected far above public service on his list of priorities.
No matter how much otherwise intelligent voters try to downgrade the relevance of platforms, they are still the most important thing for any candidate to have. So much so that if a candidate doesn’t have one, he shouldn’t even be considered a real candidate. The same is not necessarily true of character and accomplishments.
Okay, Ben K,
Let’s say there is a mayor in the running, and he is in the running because he made his city “world class”, but in the process, but skimming a small percent of the construction budgets, made himself rich. Stellar accomplishments. Isn’t it likely that, as President, we would continue to face hidden budgets rather than transparent financials?
That small percentages he put into his own accounts were probably taken from the poor. I find that sort of thinking just impossible to vote for.
For me, character remains number one.
Joe
Give me a real example instead of a hypothetical one. You don’t vote for hypothetical candidates, do you?
If you don’t have an example, I do:
http://www.getrealphilippines.com/agr-disagr/delaney.html
Mayors who do that in the real world don’t trip over the dollars of the contractors and big business (or mob) interests to pick up the nickels of the poor. I don’t even think they do that here.
When I vote for somebody, I’m not voting for their disposition. I’m voting for what they say they’re going to do to get the job done that I’m hiring them for. Simple as that. If you want to overlook that and focus on character, that’s your prerogative. But when the candidate who doesn’t say he’s going to do anything ends up not actually doing anything, be neither surprised nor disappointed. You only got as good as you asked for.
Ben K,
I vote my gut, actually. Have every time, it works every time. Often it is a mishmash of character and achievement, and sometimes wayward things . . . like I don’t want an 80 year old president.
The money that goes wrongly anywhere is money that is not available for worthwhile programs to good things.
People don’t see the association, but it is there.
Joe
That’s often true, but not always. When Mayor Daley tabs a contractor for “express lane service” to get a building permit approved, it’s almost certain that the money the contractor slips to the mayor’s office is not money that would be otherwise put to an altruistic purpose. On the other hand, it may (not guaranteed, true, but maybe) possibly find its way back to the people in some form of largesse.
When it comes to something like, say, departmental funds being spent on unnecessary and barely-disguised campaigning infomercials, you’re definitely right. It’s a razor-thin line sometimes. The point is, the character that can do the first thing is the same sort of character that can do the second thing. Misappropriation is misappropriation, no matter what good comes of it, right? But a person with the same character can either be a hero or a crook, depending on how he applies it.
I believe that voters’ decisions are based on purely selfish needs and desires, and they ought to be. Who’s going to make economic conditions better so my business earns more money? Who’s going to make it easier for me to find a job? Who’s going to make sure my kids have adequate schools to attend? Who’s going to keep me and my family safe from criminals, rebels, and evil foreign invaders? Who’s going to pick up my trash? Me, me, me, what’s this guy going to do for me? That’s how voters think, whether or not they can consciously frame it in those terms. They need to have those questions answered, and they search hard for those, consciously or not. And when the candidates don’t make the answers obvious, the voters have no choice but to try to form answers out of what they do get – character and accomplishments. And there’s no guarantee they’re going to be right.
Ben K,
Yes, we are reasonably aligned I think. I do think that the Philippine expense budgets are too mysterious, so it is possible to hide things everywhere. I went to the nscb web site to try to sort things out and couldn’t get anywhere. How much is spent on concrete roads through the rice paddies, anyway? Rhetorical . . .
Joe
That NSCB website is enough to drive a man to drink, sometimes. I don’t know, maybe “coordination” is a local term for “cherry-picking”.
“But when the candidate who doesn’t say he’s going to do anything ends up not actually doing anything, be neither surprised nor disappointed.”-Ben K
That will never happen. A candidate, whether with platform or none, after winning the election, will always do something, anything.
As long as he got his 20 or 40%.
sure thingie, anyone will do something – anything –
but is this the something anything same as the something anything you voted for?
with pretty much nothing to glean from – it can remain anything.
given the same thieving characters – who among the thieves has the sense to let growth in so that there is sustainability – that the thieved on parties will always have something worth stealing.
Given Mr Bencard Esq’s post and the kind of candidates we will have, I can just say the most famous line from C3P0… “We’re doomed!”
i don’t think we are “doomed”, blackshama. we just have to find a way to accept (with a finger on our nose, if we need to) the least of several evils. i guess we’ll just have to make allowances for human frailty. no man is perfect. but then, we are not electing supermen, angels or saints.
the ultimate question is, who is the best for the country and the filipino people in these troubled times?
by the looks of it- this is certainly going into another round of – who is the least evil.
The voters of May2010 elections have to contend with three questions. (1) Which candidate (and candidate’s immediate family) will be incorruptible?
(2) Which candidate will move the country’s economy forward?
(3) Which candidate will reduce the degree of corruption of the government bureaucracy.
———–
Come to think of it, has there ever been a Filipino president who scored positive on even two of the three questions?
Bencard, striving for a balanced view here. The way you and I bicker is the way the Republicans and Democrats bicker, and it is truly unfortunate . . . A platform means nothing if others wish to undermine work done in good faith, for partisan ideology or re-election.
Joe
WASHINGTON (AP) — For all the GOP howling about Barack Obama radically steering the government to the left and leading the nation toward socialism, some of his major appointments are Republican men and women of the middle.
In what may be the top two national posts in light of today’s crises at home and abroad, Obama stuck with the picks of former President George W. Bush in reappointing Fed chief Ben Bernanke and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Bernanke last week was given another four-year term to preside over nothing less than saving the U.S. economy and then keeping it strong. He was appointed by Bush in 2006 after a short stint as chairman of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Gates was kept in his Pentagon post to wind down the war in Iraq and build up the one in Afghanistan.
The loss of Sen. Ted Kennedy to brain cancer led to a chorus of laments about the dearth of politicians these days able to reach across party lines. While Obama hasn’t had much luck with the highly polarized Congress in building bipartisan support on legislation, he’s reached out often to Republicans in filling key jobs.
The notion that he’s moving the government to the left “is laughable, it’s utterly laughable,” said Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar at the Brookings Institution. Mann said the decision to keep Bernanke and Gates “doesn’t buy him a thing with Republicans but was a sign of good judgment in both cases” because Bernanke and Gates were doing good jobs.
Obama’s larger problem is that he still does not have his own people in a majority of the government’s top policymaking positions requiring Senate confirmation. But those he has put in top positions include a number of Republicans or nontraditional Democrats.
Along with Gates and Bernanke, they include:
-Sheila Bair as holdover chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. She has played a major role in the management of the financial crisis. A one-time unsuccessful candidate for a Kansas House seat, Bair was first appointed by Bush in June 2006. Forbes Magazine ranks her as the second most powerful woman in the world behind German chancellor Angela Merkel.
-Ray LaHood, a former congressman from Illinois, as transportation secretary. He was elected as part of the “Gingrich Revolution” of 1994 and was so trusted by both Republicans and Democrats that he was selected to preside over the House during the impeachment vote against President Bill Clinton.
-Former Rep. John McHugh from upstate New York, as Army secretary. McHugh was known by his House colleagues for an even temperament and willingness to work with Democrats.
-Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was a Mormon missionary in China in his youth, as ambassador to China.
-Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian, as director of the National Institutes of Health.
Unlike the others on the list, Collins is not a Republican and worked in the Obama presidential campaign. But he doesn’t fit the usual mold of liberal Democrat as portrayed by many Republicans.
Collins discussed his religious views in a 2006 book. Although some questions have been raised about whether he could keep his religious views separate from his work, the physician-geneticist is well respected in his field for landmark discoveries of disease genes and as head of the Human Genome Project.
Meanwhile, Obama has been contending with an angry left upset at him for not insisting more forcefully on a government-run health insurance option and for his decisions to retain some Bush-era counterterrorism policies.
“The effort to portray Obama as dangerously leftist just doesn’t have any traction,” said Stephen Cimbala, a political science professor at Penn State. “I think if they want to pick up seats in 2010 and get back up off the floor where Bush left them, they’re going to have to find a way to go beyond the very narrow core Republican base and reach out to moderates. The case they have to make against Obama is a case about competency and performance. Not about ideology.”
Republicans are going all out on the war path, especially on health care overhaul and budget issues.
“Obama and his liberal congressional allies want to saddle taxpayers with even more debt through their government-run health care experiment that will cost trillions of dollars,” said Republican party chief Michael Steele. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, accused Obama of a management style that’s “not leadership, it’s negligence.” Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said in Saturday’s GOP video and Internet address that Obama’s Democrats favor “cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs.”
In asking Bernanke to stay on, Bush praised the former Princeton economist for “his calm and wisdom” in steering the economy through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
At the time he announced he was sticking with Gates at the Pentagon, Obama said he didn’t ask the member of the Bush war cabinet to remain because of his party affiliation but because he felt he could best “serve the interests of the American people.” Obama said he was “going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.”
Meanwhile, Obama returned from his vacation in Massachusetts on Martha’s Vineyard and, after a few days at Camp David, will redouble his efforts toward getting a bipartisan health care overhaul and wants to work with both Democrats and Republicans, White House officials said.
“I think that it’s unfortunate, again, it’s tremendously unfortunately that it looks like Republicans are stepping away from seeking a bipartisan solution,” presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Monday. “I think … it’s bad for this town, but it’s much worse for this country.”
i don’t believe the growing opposition to obama’s policies, not the least of which is the “obamacare” agenda, is driven by partisan considerations. obama was elected, essentially, by the vote of his liberal, democratic base in combination with sufficient number of independents (unaffiliated) voters who want to try “a devil they don’t know” and a relatively few stray republicans disgruntled over some of bush’s policies.
obama’s favorable rating is down to 46% from a high of 67% at his inauguration, barely 7 months ago. obviously, he still has the support of his liberal base, but he lost the independents and ‘prodigal’ republicans who now see him for what he is and where he is bringing the country to. the rejection is in no way partisan, just a reawakening of critical proportion.